


Smother

by mnyrd



Category: Original Work, The Little Mermaid - All Media Types
Genre: Environment, F/F, Immortality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-28
Updated: 2016-05-28
Packaged: 2018-07-10 17:38:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6998113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mnyrd/pseuds/mnyrd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An appropriation of Hans Christian Andersen's 'The Little Mermaid'</p>
            </blockquote>





	Smother

There is a place, far out in the ocean, where the water is no longer crystal clear and sapphire blue. It is deeper than any man can fathom, and was once surrounded by the most superlative plants and animals under the sun. This sub-aquatic world will be your home. 

You will grow up in a remarkable castle on a sand strewn seabed with your grandmother, the Queen, and your five sisters. You will grow up hearing tales of the world above, and with an ache in your chest telling you that you belong anywhere but there. You will feel out of place and not fully understand why, but you will grow used to this.

In your abundance of spare time, you will travel to sunken shipwrecks and underwater caves in search of treasures untold, and spend many weeks wandering through the darkened and too-quiet caverns. You will find bags upon bags of precious jewels, silverware, coins and various ornaments; far too much to store even in your rooms in the palace, yet you will never find enough. You will long for the day when you will be able to see the world above, but dread it at the same time, for mermaids are only allowed to see it twice. Once on the night of their fifteenth birthday, and again when they ascend to the waves as sea-foam after their three hundred years of life are up.

You will spend the first fourteen years of your life trying to prepare yourself, so that you can make the most of the night which you will so anticipate. You will research and study and ask more questions than many do in a lifetime, and grow fascinated with their languages and dialects, for they are so different to your own. You will swim as fast as you can to the surface when at last the night arrives, and you will screech with joy as you feel the first hint of a breeze on your cheek. You will look up to see the stars, but find nothing but a faint orange glow. You will try to find a rock to sit on, but you will not be able to differentiate between that which is stone and what is simply another discarded piece of plastic in the island of rubbish that will surround you. You will stare out into the distance and watch two massive ships draw nearer, then collide suddenly, cracking each other open. This will be the first time your heart breaks, but as you watch them paint the sea black and the sky red, you will realise that it will not be the last. You will try to swim back down to your family, but you won’t be able to see or breathe beneath the surface anymore, so you will do the only thing that you can. Run.

When you pass the sinking ships you will find an unconscious girl lying prostrate across a jagged sheet of metal. You will once have been enamoured by human kind and their creations, but after witnessing the destruction of all you hold dear at their hands, you will not know whether or not you should help her. You do.

You will pull her to the nearest beach and drag her up onto the sand to recover, and attempt to slip away through the mist before she regains consciousness, but she will see you and tell you to stay. You will talk until morning before departing, along with the mist. You will go to the warlock your grandmother so often spoke of, and you will beg him for his help. He will offer you legs and mortality in exchange for your voice on the condition that you are able to find happiness, lest you be cursed with immortality and solitude, and you will accept. 

You will search for the princess for many years, and though you will have little success you will not stop, for she will be the only friend that you will have left. When you find her, she will be alone on the beach onto which you pulled her all those years ago. You will run to her and you will tell her that she is all you have, that she is your sun and stars but you cannot voice your thoughts. She will not mind, and you will learn a new language, no longer by yourself, but there is an art to communication that cannot be replicated by motion. As time will pass the love in her eyes will turn to frustration, and you will have no stars left. This will be the second time you run, and you know that it will not be the last.

Over the course of your extensive life, you will watch civilisations rise and then turn to dust. You will see kingdoms topple and watch as they are rebuilt. You will lose much of your memory to time's incorrigible tide, including those of the princess, but you will meet many other girls through the years. They will try to teach you to love with their smiling eyes, and promises laughed over the rims of champagne glasses that they won’t be able to keep. You will wake up every morning and find that you look will the exact same as you have for all the others that you are still able to remember, and you will open your mouth and nothing will come out, and you will know that they won’t be enough.

You will, no matter how hard you will try to convince yourself otherwise, tire of the incessant solitude eventually. You will long for your fins and your family and the freedom offered by speech, and you will be overcome, and you will break. You will scream and wail and demand answers from the sky and stars, but no voice will emerge and no answers will come and the sea will swallow your cries. 

You will turn to foam, but the oil will smother you.


End file.
